Here is a part of a letter written by Pliny the Younger
to his wife's aunt, in which he praises his wife:
She even sets my poems
to music and sings them, to the accompaniment
of a lyre.No musician has taught her, but love itself, the best of
instructors.
Martial describes what a dinner at his house would be like, down to the
music:
I will provide
entertainment which is neither serious nor frivolous: you will
hear the music of a small flute.
Another view of dinner music comes from Petronius in his novel the
Satyricon. Here, however, the music is used as a way to illustrate the
ostentatious behavior of the host:
We were about halfway
through some very elegant hors d'oeuvres when
Trimalchio himself was carried in to the sound of orchestra music and
placed
On a pile of pillows. This spectacle surprised us and made us laugh.
In addition to dinner entertainment, music was also performed at
special programs. There were musical concerts that included lyre
playing as well as singing. These were not as popular as mimes and
plays, however. The oriental music of foreigners could be criticized,
as it was here by Juvenal, who cries out against the Greeks and Syrians
for a list of reasons, into which he lumps their musical instruments:
For a long time Syrian
Orontes has poured its sewage into our Tiber -
Its language, its customs, its flutes, its string instruments, its
foreign
Tambourines, and the prostitutes who are sent to hang out at the race
track.
Music was also used at times in initiations and rites which some Romans
disapproved of. For instance, Livy speaks about the initiates of
Bacchus committing evil deeds which were obscured by music:
Many outrages were
attempted through fraud, more through violence.
The violence was concealed, however, because the shrieks of those
Tortured by deviant sex or murder could not be heard over the loud
Wails and the crash of drums and cymbals.
Here, the poet Lucretius describes a procession in honor of Cybele,
Magna Mater:
In processions,
tightly stretched drums thunder out as they are struck by
The hands of her attendants. Curved cymbals clash, and horns threaten
With their harsh wailing. And the hollow flute stirs the heart with
Phrygian
Tune.
Finally, here is a description of an initiation into the cult of Isis,
an Egyptian goddess who came to be worshipped in Rome. This account was
written by Apuleius, and is found in his novel The Golden Ass:
…Flutes and pipes and
piccolos sounded a very soothing harmony.
An attractive choir of carefully chosen boys, radiant in their white
Vestments, followed, singing a hymn which had been composed by
a skillful poet, inspired by the Muses, and which explained the
precessional rites of this important ceremony. Then came the pipe
players
dedicated to the cult of mighty Serapis. Holding their pipes out to the
side, toward their right ears, they played a tune usually heard in a
temple,
by the god.
